


Charmed

by wynnebat



Series: A Dark Bouquet [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Courtship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2019-07-03 22:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: When the Dark Lord popularizes an older type of courtship, Hermione never expects it to lead anywhere for her.





	Charmed

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to the first work in the series. 
> 
> Mentions of a past doctor/patient professional relationship within the pairing and past thoughts of suicide.

Work Text:

When the Dark Lord popularizes an older type of courtship, Hermione never expects it to lead anywhere for her. It's not that she's still twelve and worried that no boy (or girl, but those thoughts are hidden away in a far corner of her mind at that age, where she doesn't have to worry about them or think about how pretty Padma looks today) will ever find her attractive. She's twenty-two and her hair is still wild and frizzy, but without the constant stress and studying, she's found ways to manage it. Her front teeth are still a little big, but her lips are full and eye-catching.

Her love of books and learning nearly put people to sleep at Hogwarts, but outside it, she's valued for what she can bring to the Dark Lord from these books. And now, there's rarely a need for her to speak with people who don't value knowledge almost as much as she does. She can cherry-pick her friends and lovers to have the same traits. (If these friends and lovers and people help distance her from the ones she used to have—love—adore, then all the better.)

But she's still a former traitor to the regime, and friendship with a boy long gone puts a blacker mark on her record that even a murder couldn't.

Hermione is a solitary creature, with only patients and coworkers and a few casual friends (and a person who's maybe a friend and maybe an enemy and maybe the most beautiful woman she's ever seen), so when a strange owl delivers a stranger package, she's bewildered. Most owls know to go to her office when it's something professional and something personal wouldn't be a carefully wrapped package without a label from Flourish and Blott's or the neighborhood apothecary. The charms to screen mail rest in a part of her memory she doesn't visit often, can't visit often, and so her mark twitches with pain as she recounts the spells she'd used to check H—his mail at Hogwarts.

Minutes later, Hermione smoothes the owl's wind-blown feathers as she stares at the courting necklace she's uncovered, resting on her desk and shimmering with magic. She's heard the Dark Lord's lectures on the matter of old traditions, his voice smooth and articulate through her old wizarding wireless set. It was a terrible trap: half propaganda, half knowledge, all interesting social constructs of days past and present. Hermione didn't leave London's wizarding library all weekend after the first broadcast.

Reviving olden courtships is only the surface of the Dark Lord's plans, but it's the most talked about and the most visible. A courting necklace given to a family member of one's beloved is its first step, to be accepted or denied with a single touch by its intended. Most simply send it straight to the beloved; not even the Dark Lord (at least now that he's stopped torturing people at every turn) can force young ones to deal with their busybody parents. And in this particular case, Hermione has no parents she can allow herself to remember.

She's still sitting there, staring at the priceless array of gems, when her wards shift to alert her of someone's knock on the door. Recognizing her visitor's magic sample, she opens the locks with a careless wave of her hand.

"You're late for our dinner appointment," Bellatrix says, striding into the room. When she sees Hermione, still dressed in her work robes and still looking over her mail, she huffs and sinks into the sofa.

Hermione rolls her eyes. "It's your own fault." There's only one person the necklace could be from, after all. One person who gives her careful glances, who takes her arm when they venture outside, who once cursed a man who dared to remember Hermione's checkered past and call her a traitor. One person who, for all that Hermione's wrapped her mind together into something whole and lovely and mostly sane, is still a drama queen.

"It's an easy enough thing to deal with," Bellatrix replies. "Just a yes or a no."

"You could've brought it up beforehand."

"Please. I could hardly ruin the surprise."

It really is a surprise, because, "I thought you preferred men."

Bellatrix gives her an amused hum. "Are you saying there's a part of my mind you aren't aware of?"

"I never viewed anything truly private. Your modesty is safe." Sex has never been one of Bellatrix's issues, either the kind of sex she was having or the number, and so Hermione never bothered looking too deeply. Now, she wonders if she should've. If this is an obsession based on their first relationship rather than the friendship it developed into.

"Pity. I thought I killed it back at Hogwarts." Perhaps realizing Hermione isn't interested in banter quite yet, Bellatrix clarifies with, "The Dark Lord is the only man I ever loved."

For a moment Hermione thinks that Bellatrix has only been attracted to the Dark Lord, and almost feels sorry for her, because the Dark Lord may be sane these days and an effective leader, but he's not a figure from the romance novels. But then, she murmurs, "Oh," as she realizes that the part of the sentence she should be concerned about is _man_. "Really?"

Hermione herself has been in love with a couple men by now. It's strange, to think of life without her complicated relationships with a few traitors and one handsome but too danger-addicted junior Death Eater.

"Well, I'm hardly wearing trousers," Bellatrix replies. "Or carrying my wand behind my ear. There's no reason why you should've known, despite your brilliant mind."

"Or wearing plaid," Hermione says, ignoring the compliment. There's a small, silly memory in the recesses of her mind of her younger self wanting to be with girls but thinking plaid is incredibly ugly. She'd been upset about needing to wear it (because to her young mind, one couldn't like girls and not wear plaid, and her closet would soon be spontaneously taken over by it) before she rolled back her shoulders and decided she was going to change all the rules if it meant she could wear her favorite jean jacket instead.

She'd been such a revolutionary, Hermione thinks with a smile. She doesn't consider what that little girl would think of her now, friends with a woman who'd killed dozens of people and marked by a man who'd killed many more. She hasn't grown up into anyone that little girl would be proud of.

But that's alright, because Hermione is proud enough of herself, for surviving if nothing else.

(But there is so much else to be proud of: her research into the mind arts, supported by the Dark Lord himself; her small but growing clientele; her success in healing most of Bellatrix's insanity; the life she's built in favor of simply killing herself once the Dark Lord won. The mark disallows it, barely lets her thoughts linger on the idea without pain, but Hermione could've found a way. She's clever and powerful and had been so deeply grieved. Perhaps the hardest thing she's ever done is continue deciding to live under the Dark Lord's regime.)

Bellatrix is her success story, the patient she's done the most for. Hermione is a lot proud, a little possessive, and mostly just pleased. It still feels like a betrayal to everyone she knew and now can't think about; especially to the boy whose parents were Alice and Frank. (Their bodies now rest in a cemetery. The Dark Lord has no use for people who can't choose to obey him.)

"And if I say no?" Hermione eventually says.

Bellatrix raises an eyebrow. "You don't want to say no. But if you do, our friendship is hardly a hardship."

"But you'd prefer something more.

"I _always_ prefer something more."

"Slytherin," Hermione said, humor lacing her voice.

"Will you be my Gryffindor?"

It's so easy to say yes. It always is, in this new world where the Dark Lord wants her for her brain, Bellatrix wants her heart, and Hermione doesn't even feel the strain anymore.

Later, she'll ask what each stone of the necklace is enchanted with, and if Bellatrix seriously expects her to ever wear it. But for now, she lifts her hair for Bellatrix to clasp it around her neck. It's less of a lock than the tattoo on one arm and a scar too magical to ever fade on the other, but Hermione thinks this might just be a promise stronger than the others. If only because, her eyes wide open as she stares into Bellatrix's eyes, she wants this.

A kiss isn't appropriate at this step of the courtship, but Hermione doesn't quell the impulse to press her lips against Bellatrix's.


End file.
